Varela scrambles to protect jobs in laundering probe

PRESIDENT  Juan Carlos Varela  weighed into the US led  seven year investigation ofPanama’s Grupo Waked and what has been seen as  Latin America’s biggest money laundering exposure with links to drug smuggling.

In a Friday, May 6 statement today Varela  said he is working with Minister of Economy and Finance Dulcidio de La Guardia and U.S. officials to “protect the jobs of the Panamanians affected” by the investigation.  “We have already initiated direct consultations and I have asked  for continuous reports on the progress of the same,” said the president.

He said that his priority at the moment is to protect “our people and our institutions.”

He said that the “independent” justice system and Panamanian regulators are “doing their jobs in accordance with their powers” and that they have taken all the immediate measures “to protect the integrity of our stock market and investors.”

The Waked family, whose visible leaders are Abdul Waked and Nidal Waked, was linked Thursday to an international network of drug trafficking and money-laundering by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

U.S. authorities identified nine individuals and 68 companies that have been placed on the Clinton list, which prohibits U.S. citizens and companies with ties in the U.S. from doing business with them.